[MacPorts] #69601: Installing recent versions of yq or wget installs libnetpbm which has a full X11/UI list of dependencies

[MacPorts]

#69601: Installing recent versions of yq or wget installs libnetpbm which has a
full X11/UI list of dependencies
----------------------------+------------------------
  Reporter:  tux-o-matic    |      Owner:  ryandesign
      Type:  defect         |     Status:  assigned
  Priority:  Normal         |  Milestone:
 Component:  ports          |    Version:
Resolution:                 |   Keywords:
      Port:  wget yq groff  |
----------------------------+------------------------

Comment (by ryandesign):

 Replying to [comment:11 lcvisser]:
 > More often than not one of these packages fails at some point in time
 (today it was `py312-pluggy`).

 I can't find any current MacPorts bug reports about py312-pluggy. Please
 file individual tickets for each port that fails to build so that it can
 be investigated and fixed.

 > It seems that at least 90% of these dependencies should not be there.

 That's not an actionable suggestion. If you have specific knowledge of a
 dependency that is not needed somewhere, please file a bug report or pull
 request with appropriate evidence. It's certainly possible that a
 dependency used to be needed by some port but then it was updated to a new
 version that doesn't need it anymore and we didn't notice. Or a dependency
 could have been added erroneously. But for each dependency that you
 believe a port doesn't need, some investigation would have to happen by
 you or someone else to confirm it and take the appropriate action. For
 example, if a dependency is optional and we want to remove it, we
 additionally must ensure that it does not get used if it happens to be
 installed, otherwise builds are not [wiki:ReproducibleBuilds
 reproducible].

 > I use `wget` a lot and with every update I spend probably a day to get
 it to work again.

 I'm sorry to hear that; that's obviously not the experience we want users
 to have. We can't fix problems we don't know about, so report each problem
 you find, presuming reports do not already exist for those problems.

 > I'd be very happy to spend that time in contributing to a solution
 (cutting down the dependency list) instead, but not sure where to start.
 Some pointers?

 Well Josh said:

 > Replying to [comment:1 jmroot]:
 > > For wget the dependency comes in via gpgme: gnupg2 -> openldap ->
 (build-time dependency only) groff -> netpbm

 And I replied:

 Replying to [comment:4 ryandesign]:
 > groff's netpbm dependency has been there
 [changeset:37fbab0efe1bd3435a92c643c77b690e7b1700e9/macports-ports for 13
 years] however
 [https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2014-03/msg00125.html the
 developer of groff says] "With the distributed tarballs, there is *no*
 dependency on Netpbm!"

 I can remove the netpbm dependency, if it's truly not needed, however that
 still leaves ghostscript which also depend on X11 when its x11 variant is
 selected, which it is by default.

 And I'm not convinced that netpbm is not needed. The groff Portfile says
 the reason the dependencies are there is because they are specified in
 groff's README, and indeed they are:

 > {{{
 > Ghostscript is required for creation of PDF and (X)HTML output.
 > Production of (X)HTML furthermore demands tools from the 'netpbm' and
 > 'psutils' packages.
 > }}}

 Perhaps a new discussion needs to be had with the developer of groff to
 get to the bottom of it. Is the README out of date? Or, if the README
 remains accurate, is it the case that we have no need for MacPorts groff
 to produce (X)HTML and we can therefore instruct it not to use netpbm or
 psutils? If you'd like to start that discussion with the developer, or if
 you find an existing discussion that answers the question, please provide
 a link to it here.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.macports.org/ticket/69601#comment:12>
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